England vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test: Day 3 – Team Effort from Sri Lankans bring themselves back into the game

Some late blows on Day 2 from Sri Lanka brought down England Domination with the tale left on overnight Sri Lanka tighten grip on the test as they reduced the England’s first innings lead to 108. Later with the bat Sri Lanka done a reasonably good job as Sri Lanka lead England by 106 runs with 6 wickets in hand. The Sri Lankan chances will be depending on how much more they will bat and what they can set for England.

England looked to bat towards a comfortable position but in the sixth over of the day, Eranga sent back Jordan. Soon in no time Mathews bowling with some good lines seen the set back of Broad and Plunkett as England were 350 for 9. Prior on the other slowly took past the lead over 100 and Eranga got rid of last man Anderson to end the England’s innings at 365, which gave England 108 run lead.

Sri Lanka needed to play 12 overs before Lunch as England rattled mid-session. The openers play the span without any problem as Anderson and Broad bowled poor lines as not even a ball of the first ten overs would have gone to hit the stumps. At Lunch interval Sri Lanka was 22 for no loss.

After Lunch, both the batsmen continued to play with ease before Plunkett finally struck in 20th overs as Silva was caught behind for 13. After that some decent partnership between Sangakkara and Karunaratne led Sri Lanka towards covering the deficient. Karunaratne felt five short of his fifty felling to Plunkett similar to Silva after putting 53 for second wicket. Jayawardene came into middle with still 15 runs behind and went to Tea along with Sanga at score 99 for 2.

After the Tea interval, the senior duo Sangakkara and Mahela came forward to lead their team without any sort of urgency. They guided Sri Lanka past the trail and slowly their lead crossed 50 runs. Sangakkara continuing his prime form completed seventh half century in row only the fourth batsmen in history to do that. Finally the partnership of 81 runs came to an end when Moeen Ali got rid of Sangakkara for 55, his second wicket in tests both were of Sangakkara. In his next over Ali got his second wicket of innings and first of a batsman other than Sanga, as he sent back Thirimanne for a Duck. This was Thirimanne’s second Duck of the game.

Mahela Jayawardene and Angelo Mathews guided Sri Lanka into day 4 without any other loss as they played out last hour of the day’s play without losing any wicket. They put on an unbeaten 38 for 5th wicket in 82 deliveries. In this process Jayawardene completed is 48th Test fifty. At Stumps on Day 3, Sri Lanka lead by 106 with another 6 wickets in hand, will be trying to play at least 2 sessions on Day 4 and get runs as quick as possible to put England under pressure.

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